The Layoff The hand of management casts the terminated into a parking lot under darkening skies. Some are dejected and resigned, but one turns back, head held high, and pronounces a curse. Or is it gratitude? Depends on the severance package. Rejection, failure, incompetence, inability to recognize shortcomings. Reversed: new beginnings, risk, promise. Silicon Valley Tarot © 1998, Thomas Scoville.

THE JOURNEY THUS FAR

It is only in sharing my professional experience with other people that I have come to realize how varied my career arc has been, in three ways: in the industries I have traveled, in the core technologies I have worked with, and in the roles I have played.

Roughly, in the first half of my career I usually asked myself, "what's the coolest, most exciting technology around?" and that's what I wanted to work with. In the second half, when I'd bought a house and then became a parent, I was more focused on what will pay well and what will have a future.

But in either case I followed the advice that was given to me by my seventh and eighth grade math teacher. He recognized that I did well in both mathematics and English. "There are always more people who can do math than explain math," he told me, and encouraged me to keep developing both skills. He assured me that I would always be needed somewhere if I could explain complicated things so that more people understood them. I took his advice at the beginning of my career, when I could have started as a programmer, and became a software technical writer instead. I continued to follow it as I transformed slowly into a pre-sales technical support engineer -- what used to be called a "Systems Analyst" or "Systems Engineer" (SE). On several occasions I have plunged back into pure software development for a while, which has helped to keep my programming skills sharp.

So, (deep breath), my career since leaving college in 1977 has included:

Venture Capital The hand of Venture Capital emerges from the clouds and bestows its blessings. Money falls like rain, refreshing the denizens of the under-funded startup. Are there invisible threads attached? Who can tell. Aid, assistance, nourishment, help. Reversed: meddling, micro-management, unwelcome partnership, aversion to risk, cowardice. Silicon Valley Tarot © 1998, Thomas Scoville.

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© 2014 Alan B. Scrivener